We are today drilling our last winter wheat, which was all put in behind maize, with the exception of around 40 acres, which is being left fallow.

Everything has been reseeded to grass or wheat, and with conditions still dry—it’s hard not to reseed everything but we need somewhere for winter slurry and early maize drilling next spring. Our maize harvest was really good with excellent yields. The interesting thing for us this year was the difference in varieties and their harvest dates. We had two varieties that seemed to ripen earlier than others despite being drilled as much as 10 days later in neighbouring fields to other varieties.

Maize variety choice

This was so convincing I am already sure of the varieties that will make up the majority of our maize next year. The extra days in the autumn are critical for us when reseeding behind maize.

In the dairy, numbers continue to rise while milk yield eased a little. We had the potential to push them a little harder towards the end of last month with fats around 3.9% (which is high for us), and ureas around 140 so I could chase another litre and still keep fats above 3.75% which is the level we are trying to stay above, as we see reductions of 0.35ppl for every 0.1% below 3.75% fat.

However at 3.9% I will get some bonus for fat and there is no incentive for more “B” price litres currently and risk losing an additional 0.25ppl on our level supply bonus of 1.5p because we had gone over our daily litreage by more than 5% of our previous six month daily average.
If possible we need to manage our growing production to 104.9% each month to achieve the maximum 1.5ppl level supply payment.

To achieve the best possible level supply payment, fertility is key. With surplus heifers every month it has in the past allowed us to drive through dips in fertility or toughs and peaks in milk output, subject to feed or disease, primarily mastitis, by adjusting numbers sold.

At the beginning of this month, we had three weeks on the trot when we were only drying up a small number of cows. This is where the software now available to us becomes so useful. I was able to look back at fertility for the period when these cows where served which saw a drop in conception rate, and pregnancy rate which nearly halved in February before bouncing back in March.

For a drop this significant, and a quick recovery the following month, in March to 30%, it set us thinking about what we did differently in February. With no big changes in forage or ration the only other thing we questioned was vaccinations. February has always been a good logistical time for us to complete vaccines.

We have more staff available as there is less fieldwork so we get assistance for the laborious job of vaccinating for what has been five different diseases in the last two years.

Vaccine problems

While I cannot conclusively say that any one vaccine has had a detrimental effect on fertility, it does make me wonder if there has been some immune response to one, or perhaps the close proximity of all the vaccines that has affected our fertility.

We also looked back to the previous year only to find a similar dip at that time. Another additional factor could be the stress of handling the cows through the race.

So if there is a possibility the dip in fertility is correlated with vaccinations and extra handling, one thing is for sure—I am not about to stop vaccinating.

It is an essential part of our herd health and the security it gives us to disease challenges that may have severe implication can’t be overlooked.

Going forward though, I plan more discussions with our vets about the February vaccinations. Handling needs to be slick and time away from housing minimized and perhaps a longer period of time between all the vaccines.

Cow comfort is a priority at Pilsdon Dairy Farm

Sand separation

Dad and I recently got away for the day to a herd achieving very high levels of health and higher yields than ours from more than twice as many cows.

One of our main reasons for visiting was my interest in sand separation and recycling which in principle makes a lot of sense. Less lorries in, less slurry out and a more environmentally sustainable option.

It was managed very well and was achieving good results with very low levels of mastitis, which would be my main concern. There were several areas of management that impressed us, which makes you question aspects of your own business.

I always think this is a very healthy thing to do, as there are always things to be learnt. We are very lucky to be in an industry that is willing to share ideas. This is especially important when the pressure on milk price has been so prolonged. We only hope it will improve at an accelerating rate.

Market realities

On our trip we had a welcome stop at Gloucester Services for refreshments, which reminded Dad and I of the fundamental difficulty we all face.

Neither of us are regular shoppers so it was good to see it with our own eyes—500ml of water sold at £1.75 and one litre of milk sold at £1.09. Milk was in fact the largest volume of fluid available at the lowest price!

AgriCamera has invested considerably in it's software for poultry monitoring and management and would like to reach new partnerships, Europe-wide, for it's thermal and optical camera systems.

AgriCamera is seeking opportunities for new installations and retrospective fitting and for stakeholders to contribute to our on-going analytical software to make a meaningful difference to pioneer broiler and layer producers.

Who we are:

Trading since 2012, AgriCamera is an innovative supplier of internet based optical surveillance solutions based in the UK.

AgriCamera is a technology business that specialises in the agricultural sector.

AgriCamera’s focus is livestock monitoring and farm security.

AgriCamera have many poultry installations in operation; layers and broilers

What makes us different

Our proprietary AgriCamera dashboard allows our customers to remotely monitor their farm and livestock from any device, anywhere in the world.

Our solution is “brilliantly simple” for our customers; we have mastered the technical set up in often difficult rural locations and made it simple.

Our solution drives scale, facilitates remote troubleshooting and allows us to manage the security of the platform.

We innovate in our market and we are developing data analytics in the poultry industry and experimenting with thermal imaging cameras.

Future vision for the poultry industry

AgriCamera have invested heavily in the software development of future livestock monitoring systems.

We know that the key to good poultry management for yield and welfare is to understand and manage activity, dispersal and other behaviour.

The game can be changed if this can be done remotely and using technology. With that in mind we have proved the technical concept:

•We can map distribution and bird activity using a combination of optical and thermal cameras.

•We can track bird activity to provide data to facilitate informed management decisions based on activity, dispersal and behaviour.

•We can map distribution to identify environmental events. For example, water leaks or heat changes.

We can tailor make and white label our software for integration in to other's systems and platforms.

AgriCamera can facilitate installation and commissioning, taking full account of bio-security and local electrical standards; Europe-wide

Monitoring

•Our internet based poultry camera solutions are the convenient and accurate way for customers to monitor their sheds, from any device anywhere in the world.

•Our poultry camera solutions cater for all our customer needs; they decide what they need to see and we provide the solution, from the simple to the comprehensive.

•Our poultry camera solutions provide the customer with instant access to recordings so they can review historic events and patterns.

Security

•Our internet based solutions provide the customer with the security and peace of mind that they need.

•Our state of the art recording solutions provide them with instant playback from any device anywhere in the world; localised storage or to the Cloud

•Our internet based solutions link multiple sites and locations giving them the visibility they need from a single device.

•Our internet based solutions provide flexible and controlled access to multiple users to suit their working patterns.

Thermal imaging

•Our thermal imaging solution gives the customer a different perspective on shed management, showing the differences in temperature within the shed.

•Our thermal imaging solution works with the customer to monitor the pre-heat cycle, ensuring the floor is heated evenly.

Jeremy Perkins
Business Development Manager at AgriCamera and Rugged Networks Limited

FollowMaking the most of your time on an all year housed dairy
Nov 22, 2016

AgriCamera has been busy recently on a number of all year round housed dairy complexes installing complete camera systems to aid the management of the cows and the herd team on the ground.

A unique digital dashboard control system channels various camera feeds with various levels of access. For the milking team, an in-parlour screen means that the team can observe the calving pen and the backing gate in the collecting yard without leaving the pit

From the management perspective, time is freed up by being able to remotely observe bulling with one ultra360 camera capable of scanning the entire cubicle house and zoom right in to individual cow collars and ear tags remotely from the farm office, from the owner's home in the evening or from anywhere in the World with wifi or 3G access using any Android, iPad, Mac or PC device.

The latest 90 degree splay bullet calving camera mounted up high in a modern portal frame building covers a large straw yarded calving area with individual nursery pens. The herd team can observe calving quietly and remotely and, importantly, post calving calf behaviour and sucking to ensure colostrum intake.

A new product area for AgriCamera is the discrete in-parlour cameras to monitor dairy health, welfare and procedures.

In addition to the dairy management, a security camera records the dairy complex entrance enabling the business to monitor biosecurity, general security and staff time keeping.

The AgriCamera set up at R E Bugler's Pilsdon Dairy will be showcased at the Gold Cup Dairy Day on June 28th with RABDF Dairy Farmer of the year Simon Bugler.

An impressive new build farm complex gave Slawston Grange Estate a free hand to design, specify and create a modern beef and sheep unit allowing ease of management and major on productivity and transparent high animal welfare standards.

At the centre of the new unit are two Roundhouse structures providing winter accommodation for Aberdeen Angus cattle. The structures feature light, airy space with central handling facilities and good peripheral covered feeding all around the outside

AgriCamera designed an integrated surveillance and management camera system with Farms and Estates Manager Oli Lee.

"We called in AgriCamera from the outset so that we could design a good camera system for our needs and incorporate trunking in to the infrastructure as we built over the Summer"

"We now have a number of features that really help us. When we are busy with other farm operations away from the site, we have peace of mind that we have cameras that we can view at any time from a computer or smart phone"

"The ultra360 cameras in the Roundhouses are mounted so that we can scan and zoom on the cattle and also use the high eaves height to look out in to the yard beyond"

"As a beacon Sainsburys supplier we are in regular dialogue with their teams and we like to be able to demonstrate best practice; now we can even show them directly".

Slawston Grange Estate now have a second AgriCamera system employed to record and secure traffic movements on a remote farm drive. Images are recorded directly to the Cloud for retrospective review and local downloading if required.

Jeremy Perkins
Business Development Manager at AgriCamera and Rugged Networks Limited

As a livestock farmer myself, I can identify with my customer's key requirements for a livestock monitoring system and often contribute in specifying it's full functionality. Sometimes that means that the key functionality may not be the immediate enquiry need.

Very often the initial enquiry centres around calving yet - as in the case of the champion Limousin herd above - other monitoring can prove just as important. Being busy with other off-site business interests, our customer needs to be able to monitor both calving periods and the critical post calving calf behaviour. Impressive bull calves often take a little longer to get to their feet after calving and our customer needs to check if the calf has suckled and continues to thrive and bond.

Similarly, many larger housed dairy herds need 24/7 observation for heat detection and bulling behaviour. At night our ultra360 pan, zoom and tilt camera can identify individual animals and at a great range (typical cameras may be centred in an 80m long shed). At AgriCamera we have cameras built to our own high levels of specification at the cost-effective end of the professional range not prosumer range. This is an important distinction when one compares an AgriCamera solution with others.

One small example is the fact that where no ambient lighting is available or desired at night-time, our powerful zoom camera models are supplied with localised infra-red illuminators fitted at defined points around the housing as opposed to inferior products that try to utilise in-built IR. We fail to see how animals can be seen adequately when a zoom is employed and the subject is so far from the light source.

AgriCamera continues to work with customers to develop solutions based on farmer's total needs. Such an approach pays dividends over the long term and is one of our greatest sources of repeat business.

Ok just something to monitor when wet bin needs filling and to check grain still coming out at the dry end and a couple of other points . iwondered if the rotary camera could pick up all these points. If it was centrally mounted then it would need 20 m in any direction.

Hi Ben. I've been looking at the website and am interested in the Revolution or Ultra 360 as a calving camera but to double as a security camera because the ideal position in the calving shed can overlook our driveway. What does the recording licence on the website achieve? Is it full Cloud-based recordings (ideal for the security aspect)?